“What do you think about this incident?”
Shairin quietly asked as she tucked her long blue hair behind her ear.
She still could not believe the story she had heard from Letra earlier.
And the same was true for Didia.
Letra was a veteran mage who had built a substantial career.
She was a talented person who had sensed mana from childhood and could use magic well, yet to think the one who had dealt with her older sister after she fell under Balaid had been someone else, not Letra.
Didia opened her mouth heavily.
“His name was Loeb, was it? If a mage with that level of skill existed, there is no way the Magic Association would not know of him. This is strange.”
“And they said he released all the dark magic cast on the corpses too.”
He had to be a mage who knew a great deal about dark magic.
Gared J. Auschwalen.
A familiar name suddenly came to Didia’s mind, but she soon shook her head.
‘It cannot be him.’
If it were Gared, he would be capable of such a thing, but he was currently in Arendel.
Moreover, there was no way he would have hidden his identity by lying about his name.
Loeb.
Who in the world was he?
Mages had to register their names with the Magic Association in order to work officially.
Otherwise, they would be regarded as rogues or dark mages, but Loeb’s name was not on the Association’s list.
More precisely, Loeb’s face was not there.
The name Loeb itself was fairly common, so there were quite a few people with the same name.
Didia spoke.
“Senior Letra did not say it outright, but the reason she asked us to find him might be because she wants to bring him into the Magic Association.”
“There are occasionally mages who wander freely without belonging anywhere.”
“The problem is where we are supposed to find him……”
A fork appeared in the road.
Shairin and Didia stopped walking and sized each other up.
“The path splits. Which way do you want to go?”
Shairin asked as if probing her. Didia held her tongue.
If she could have had her way, she would have gone wherever Shairin suggested.
The two of them always ended up disagreeing over everything and immediately fighting.
But they were working right now.
Only by forcing her opinion through could she take the first point in the competition.
Her hesitation deepened.
If they went left here, a large village would appear.
Moreover, only a day had passed since the village had been attacked, so Loeb was likely resting in a hotel or an inn by now.
“Let us go left.”
“Let us go right.”
The two answered almost simultaneously.
As expected, their answers differed again.
Shairin and Didia faced each other and glared fiercely.
“Are you sane? A person like Loeb is the type who keeps moving constantly. He is not someone who would stay in one place for long.”
“But he is human too. He must be quite tired after a fight, yet you think he would travel far without resting? That is such absurd nonsense that I cannot even listen to it.”
“They said he dealt with it in a single blow. Then there would be no reason for him to be tired!”
“Are you not considering the fatigue he would have accumulated while coming here? Even to your foolish eyes, it should be obvious that this place is deep in the mountains. It takes hours of walking to reach it!!”
Sparks flew between them.
A dark shadow fell over Shairin’s forehead. Didia also lifted her chin menacingly.
“As expected, it is impossible to talk to you.”
“It is unpleasant that a monkey is trying to stand on the same level as a human.”
No sooner had Didia finished speaking than—
CRACKLE!
Fierce blue lightning burst from Shairin’s body.
It was a typical warning signal.
And as if reacting to it, a red weasel climbed onto Didia’s shoulder.
“You really have a rag in that mouth of yours, do you not?”
“That is better than having a rag for a face.”
CRACK!
Didia’s sharp retort seemed to make Shairin truly lose her temper, and she shouted furiously.
“Fine. Today, I will make that face of yours look just like mine!!!”
“Try it if you can, you bitch!!”
His identity had been discovered by a mage.
It would not be a problem right now, but it was only a matter of time before she sent people to find him.
Rud sat in a chair in his hotel room and spent some time deep in thought.
In truth, he should not be sitting there like this.
He had to call Gared quickly and report the current situation, but he could not do that either, afraid that things might become strangely tangled.
It was a cruel fate, if one wished to call it that.
On top of that, there was the appearance of the dark mage named Shuran.
The timing fit together so perfectly that it was strange. Rud could not shake the feeling that he had fallen into a trap.
‘It is probably impossible, but if all of this is Shuran’s design, calling Gared may be far too premature.’
Questions followed one after another, each dragging another behind it.
At times like this, he had to read Shuran’s thoughts.
Why had Shuran manipulated the corpses to react to a dark mage?
It would have been more natural to attack the police or mages who came to investigate.
Tick. Tick.
The hands of the pocket watch inside the hotel room echoed heavily through the room.
Rud thought quietly without even glancing at the snacks on the table, and then one hypothesis came to mind.
‘……Do not tell me he found out there is a dark mage inside the police?’
A chilling shiver ran down Rud’s spine.
Had the information leaked?
Shuran was a dark mage who had emerged after hiding for several hundred years.
Through his own informants, it would be nothing for him to catch hold of secrets circulating within the police.
‘I should leave the hotel first.’
Even he thought it made no sense, but if Shuran’s target had been him from the beginning, then the entirety of the current situation fit together perfectly.
Rud quickly rose from the chair, checked out of the hotel, and went outside.
It was 3:30 in the afternoon.
There was no train station, but if he caught a carriage, he would be able to arrive in Arendel by dawn tomorrow.
Rud came out onto the roadside and waved to a coachman who happened to be passing nearby.
“……!?”
A preposterously enormous lifespan stabbed at him fiercely, as though binding his entire body.
Rud’s body stiffened as if it had frozen solid.
‘Wh-what is this lifespan……!’
It was an atrocious magnitude unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.
Roughly four hundred…… No, was it five hundred?
The distance between them was considerable.
Perhaps the other party had not sensed him yet, because the presence was gradually moving farther away in another direction.
“Excuse me, are you not getting in?”
Even though the carriage had stopped in front of him, Rud could not take in anything around him right now.
“Excuse me!”
Even after the coachman asked again, Rud gave no response, as though time had stopped for him alone. The coachman spat out a curse and snapped the reins.
The carriage left for somewhere else. Rud belatedly came to his senses and tried to catch it again, but the coachman was already far away.
‘What in the world was that just now?’
Cold sweat flowed down his face. Rud could not believe the very fact that he had been frightened.
A dark mage with almost twice his lifespan had been nearby, so he had instinctively felt pressure.
‘Was that Shuran? Or someone else?’
He had to confirm the face.
The lifespan was gradually moving farther away.
Even though Rud instinctively understood that he might die, he could not suppress his body from running.
If he could catch Shuran, his credibility as a secret police officer would rise sharply.
Then, even if a mage had discovered his identity, if the higher-ups applied pressure, Letra would not pursue him.
“You are seriously shameless. How can you grit your teeth and come at me that hard over something like that?”
“Hah, how amusing. Anyone who heard you would think I bullied you one-sidedly. And were you not the one who started it?”
The citizens’ gazes fixed on the two mages.
Whatever had happened between them, their clothes and hair had all been burned dark, leaving their appearances a complete mess.
It was certain they had ended up like that while fighting each other. Didia checked the faces of the citizens looking at them one by one, then continued speaking.
“We can settle our fight later. For now, let us focus on work. He was definitely a young man with white hair and white eyes, was he not? They said he looked around twenty at most.”
“There is too little information. How are we supposed to find someone like that in a place this large?”
“We may be able to find him if we go to hotels or restaurants, so let us split up for now.”
Letra had merely asked them to find Loeb.
Though Didia did not know the exact purpose, it was a direct request, so she would carry it out faithfully.
“Then I will take the hotels.”
“Why? Because there are fewer hotels?”
“Is that not obvious?”
She was shameless beyond belief.
To think she would choose the easiest option after hastily compromising because she knew she was at a disadvantage.
Didia suppressed her boiling anger and spoke.
“Fine. I will search the restaurants, so Shairin can take the hotels……”
“Hey, over there!”
Shairin cut off Didia’s words and urgently pointed somewhere.
When Didia cast her gaze in that direction, a man with white hair and white eyes was busily looking around, as if searching for someone.
Shairin spoke excitedly.
“Is that not the person Senior Letra mentioned?”
“His appearance certainly matches.”
“See! I told you he would be here!”
“When did you ever say that?”
In any case, they had achieved their objective.
Now all they had to do was report to Letra, but he was not staying still. He looked as though he might leave the village at any moment.
Perhaps Shairin sensed the same thing, because she quietly whispered to Didia.
“Something seems strange, does it not? Should we at least try talking to him first?”
“That would be best. We also need to keep him here until Senior arrives.”
Their appearances were a complete mess, but if they said they had come from the Magic Association, they trusted he would readily speak with them.
Shairin exchanged a glance with Didia and approached Loeb warmly.
“Hello. I am Shairin Hazek, affiliated with the Magic Association. Has something happened? You do not look well.”
The moment Loeb saw Shairin, his face darkened.
Then, after he noticed Didia standing behind her as well, he even frowned.
“What business do you have with me?”
His tone was cold. At a glance, he also seemed wary.
“You seemed to be in some sort of urgent situation, so we wanted to help. Could you tell us what is going on?”
“No, it is all right.”
The white-haired mage immediately refused and tried to pass by, but Shairin blocked his way.
“What are you doing?”
“We will help you. Mages exist for the public good of the citizens!”
‘The corpse is not coming. So the rumor was only a rumor after all?’
The police were an organization both meticulous and full of openings.
Many rumors that spread were nothing at all, but this case was different from the ones that had come before.
Rumors often distorted one truth into countless lies. In other words, something that had never happened would not be carried on people’s tongues.
Knowing this well, Shuran had attacked a village and created a trap, just in case.
He had even openly allowed his photograph to be taken.
He had planned to leak information and lure out the dark mage who had entered the police, but contrary to his expectations, it seemed to have ended in vain.
He felt displeased because things seemed to be turning out just as that woman had said. Shuran clicked his tongue softly and leisurely left the village.
‘I should go release the dark magic first.’